Phenom II X4 or I7 for 300 more?

Athlon Phenom II X4 965 3.4ghz
5770 1gb video card
MSI 785GM-E65 mobo
4gb ram
750w p.s.
74gb raptor drive
razer mouse, speakers, etc
(someone wants to sell me this system for $450)

i7-870 $250 (i7-930 is $290 here)
5770 1gb vid card
MSI X58 Pro-E LGA 1366 Intel X58 $170
8gb ram $200
Thermaltake 600w p.s. $60
64gb Kingston SSD $120
(new from store, would cost $950ish)

Is the bottom system worth it? Or do you think I can get away with wotlk and perhaps cata with the 1st? Both stomp what I have now.

Go i7. I love it. The extra cores help out a lot for boxing. Make sure u can upgrade ram slots in the future. Some motherboards can really screw u over. Also, 64bit windows is a must.

Any I7? I see some are H55/P55 and some are X58.

Go phenom 2, it'll run 5 very easily. i had 8 running on a phenom 1...

I was reading some more threads, think I understand now why people recommend an I7 X58 platform...future expandability.

I am sort of leaning toward the Phenom because of the price. Do you think I'd make it through Dalaran d0z3rr with that 1st setup, or is that a place you don't wanna get caught in without an I7?

i have an amd phenom II x6 (1055T) and it runs fine. my FPS may drop to 30 in dalaran (my main toon) on ultra settings. Of course I have an SSD and my video card is an ATI 4890 1GB.

the CPU isn't taxed too much for me.. most I see on any core is 25% utilization. (but they are usually all at around 15% with spikes to 25%)

btw I have 8GB RAM.

I'm no expert, but that sounds like one hell of a deal for $450...

That's what I'm thinking. But would I regret it later? I guess I could just walk everyone 1 at a time through Dalaran if the system chokes there. Would be using all 5 on ISBoxer if that makes any difference.

i7 with a mb capable of 24G, either X58 or P55.


All my computers are AMD (6400 X2) but the fact is Intel is ahead right now.

I do 7 clients with the X2 so ya you can do 5 with the better cpu. But I run 64 bit win7 with 8 g.

Quote:

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FPS may drop to 30 in dalaran (my main toon) on ultra settings. Of course I have an SSD and my video card is an ATI 4890 1GB.

the CPU isn't taxed too much for me.. most I see on any core is 25% utilization

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See thats the truth Dalaran isnt the cpu its the moving of textures from the Hard Drive to the Video Card and the AMD buss is way worse then the X58/P55 and thats why you get texture lag, not the cpu.

You are not getting better cause of the i7 chip its the X58 or P55 that is getting you what you want.

I have an AMD Athlon II X4 620 (2.6GHz) with 8Gb or Ram and I 5box through Dalaran no problem. Either system will be fine, although I'd double the memory of the AMD one if it were me.

make sure you get the CPU and MB to match.
any i5 and the i7-8xx use the p55 chipsets and use double channel RAM
the i7-9xx use the x58 chipset and use triple channel RAM

I would go for the AMD deal. If it does not work out, you end up with half the parts for an Intel system at a good price.

I don't know about the CPU's - but I would not build a new multiboxing pc with only 4gb ram, and without a SSD.

That's a very interesting point Sam. I think you and alcattle were talking about that as well in another thread too. Makes perfect sense.

I see the Intel 40gb ssd everyone likes is $99 at Bestbuy, will have to snag one. And get another 4gb for the 1st system if I go that route.

New sales come out tomorrow @ Fry's, want to see if they have a juicy cpu/mb combo first before making a decision.

Thanks for all the thoughts and advice everyone, really appreciate it:)

Nothing is wrong with Intel SSDs but that one is not the same as their first one that blew everyone away. different models.
The original one (or close to it) Intel SLC goes for $377 (32 Gig)

I'm not saying that I "lag through dalaran". 30FPS at the lowest isn't an issue, ever.

Just wanted to let you know that it will drop from the texture loading but just because it drops to 30fps it doesn't cause any issues.

Sharing my experience with an SSD and my video card / CPU / RAM setup.